


Diamond

by bffimagine



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attempt at Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Swearing, Toph Beifong Being Awesome, i'm honestly not very funny, they're idiots your honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29836971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bffimagine/pseuds/bffimagine
Summary: This is how Zuko meets Katara's brother, as told by the greatest friend in the world, Toph Beifong.Wherein Toph "watches" two idiots meet and get together, and makes sure to make fun of them every step of the way.(Inspired by a true experience with ordering food delivery.)
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Zuko, briefly mentioned past Jet/Zuko
Comments: 8
Kudos: 128





	Diamond

**Author's Note:**

> This is very embarrassingly reflective of some events in my life.

Toph prodded Zuko's shoulder with her foot.

"When's the food supposed to get here, Sparky?"

She heard him grunt in response, followed by the rustling of his absurdly numerous layers of clothing (seriously, most days Zuko was 80 percent fabric but still 100 percent endearing idiot, per Toph's statistical analysis… not that she’d ever tell him about the second part, since that would be soft and she’d have to punch him hard enough to break his arm to make up for it) as he fumbled for his phone. There was a moment of quiet as her best friend (affectionately: her dearest and dumbest dumbass) checked the delivery app. Toph could tell by the subtle shift in his posture that he was squinting down at the device; Katara had once explained how to adjust the size of his phone's text to make it easier on his weaker eye, but he was A) very technologically challenged and B) a stubborn piece of shit, so he ended up asking Aang to change the settings back after it made one of his apps go wonky. 

Toph was pretty sure it was his Instagram, since he pretty much followed the people in their friend group (Toph had no use for such stupid shit but she did create an account to post random shit that she pointed her phone at and had Katara write her account description for her as “the buttdial of Insta”) and over a thousand pet accounts and animal shelters so he could curl up and scroll through pictures of dogs and cats and turtles whenever he was feeling down, which was most of the time, considering the shitstain he had the misfortune of calling his father. Spirits forbid the text on the pet posts got warped by incompatibility with basic accessibility functions.

“Uh… I think… Diamond is supposed to be here in three minutes.”

“What kind of name is Diamond?” Toph scoffed, leaning over her leg to pick some dirt from beneath her toenails. She could tell exactly when Zuko looked up at her and his features rearranged themselves into an expression of utmost disgust; his breathing paused for a moment and he took an extra-long exhale just to prevent himself from compulsively starting to clean the entire living room.

“You can’t just--I don’t know! A name, I guess?” Zuko muttered, and Toph practically _felt_ how high his shoulders climbed as she heard him cross his arms in that defensive huffy manner of his.

“Well, whatever. _Diamond_ better be here with my pad thai in three minutes, otherwise he’ll have to mine my foot out of his ass with a pickaxe.”

“You… are the most terrifying person I’ve ever met,” Zuko said, painfully honest, the undercurrent of awe in his voice completely transparent.

Fifteen minutes later, Zuko was still hunched over his laptop as he obsessively created tables to review for his economics midterm, and Toph was flopped over the rest of the sofa with her feet crossed at the ankles in his lap.

“What the fuck, Sparky,” she groaned, scrunching her toes up in his outermost shirt as if using them to climb his front. To his credit, Zuko didn’t even flinch this time. “Where’s my food?”

“Ugh, I can check, hang on.” She waited (im)patiently for the ten seconds it took for Zuko to finally tear himself away from his studying and check his phone again.

“It says Diamond got delayed. It’ll be another few minutes.”

“Another few minutes? Noooooooo!” This time, Toph splayed her toes dramatically in twin fans of calloused distress, pushing them into Zuko’s chest like a cat kneading its sunspot before settling in. Zuko swatted at her ankles before her toes could enter his nostrils.

“Holy sh--stop! What the hell are you doing?”

Toph flipped herself over and snatched Zuko’s phone while he was still trying to push her feet away from his face. She made some random swiping motions on the screen for as long as it took Zuko to finally notice, and as soon as he made a tell-tale squawk of surprise, she threw it at him. It collided with some part of his body with a satisfying _whump_ , followed by a soft _thud_ as it hit the ground and Zuko yelled, “ _Hey!_ ”

The scuffle that ensued would have been embarrassing, if anyone had actually witnessed it, but alas, it was just the two of them being stupid roommates as usual. When they first moved into their apartment, Katara made fun of them for being clueless rich kids with no idea how to fend for themselves--of course, this was mostly because they had both moved in with full sets of dinnerware including matching utensils and each of them had a panini press but neither of them had thought to bring actual pots or pans. After a year, they at least had a set of proper cooking tools and one less panini press in their household (which just might have been because Katara claimed it as her own and neither Zuko nor Toph even knew how to use the damn appliance so they couldn’t even argue with her when she just took it).

“Oh my spirits,” Zuko breathed as soon as they came to a standstill. Toph carefully withdrew her fingers from the inside of his cheek so she could smack her spit-moistened hand over his cheek to encourage him to continue.

“Oh no. Oh no, no, no. _Agni_ , why would you--”

“I’m sure this is all very charming on some other planet, Zuko, but remember that I am a human and I don’t speak alien.”

She could feel the heat of Zuko’s glare on her forehead and she grinned smugly in response. “You _messaged_ him.”

“Who?”

“ _Diamond_!” he hissed. “You messaged our food deliver-er guy and now… oh shit, he’s replying!”

Toph listened for the cheerful _ping_ that indicated her complete victory over her spineless coward of a roommate.

“Oh _Agni_ , what do I do?”

“I think that depends on what he said, genius.”

The sheer magnitude of Zuko’s pout practically pressed into Toph’s consciousness. She couldn’t help but smirk at him.

“...he just asked what the previous message was supposed to say, since you basically sent him an unintelligible string of swipe-suggest nonsense.”

“Just tell him to hurry it up, I’m hungry!”

“You are the absolute _worst_ ,” Zuko grumbled, but of course obediently typed back a response. A series of _swoosh_ es and _ping_ s punctuated the exchange, and suddenly everything went quiet and Zuko’s face was feeling very, very warm under Toph’s hand.

“Okay Sparky, you’re gonna have to fill the blind girl in on your forbidden love letters with _Diamond_.”

Zuko coughed and spluttered, “Um yeah, so maybe his name isn’t Diamond?”

Toph raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Zuko meekly complied with the wordless command. “He… um, he’s a _diamond-ranked_ delivery guy. On the app. So uh… that’s not his name.”

There was a beat of incredulous silence before Toph erupted into a fit of hysterical cackling. “Are you serious? This is rich! And _I’m_ supposed to be the blind roommate here! You couldn’t even read the dude’s name?”

“It was really small, okay!” Zuko groaned. Toph heard his palm smack against probably his forehead as he let out an aggravated noise from dragging said hand down his face. “I didn’t see the name underneath “Diamond”, how was I supposed to know?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe you would’ve thought to check when I was like, ‘What the fucking hell kind of name is _Diamond_ ’?!”

“You’re, like, the rudest person I’ve ever met! Why wouldn’t you say something like that? Even if the guy’s name actually _was_ Diamond?”

Toph dissolved into vindictive giggles as Zuko’s face burned even hotter under her palm. “ _You’re_ the stupidest person I’ve ever met but I kinda love that about you.”

“You’re the _worst_ ,” Zuko reiterated, this time with additional misery.

There was a knock at the door before Toph could retort with something masterfully witty and, undoubtedly, _hilarious_. Zuko threw Toph’s various limbs off of his person and bolted to the door.

Toph lay unmoving from where she ended up sprawled akimbo on the floor, listening to the cadence of Zuko’s voice as it got higher and squeakier. She could practically feel the thrum of his nerves through the laminate and she couldn’t conceal the utter _glee_ she felt at her roommate’s expense.

“HEY ZUKO,” she hollered, knowing that the delivery guy was still there. “SEEMS LIKE _DIAMOND_ IS REALLY HOT, IF HE’S GOT YOUR GAY ASS TRIPPING OVER EVERY OTHER WORD LIKE THAT!”

A thick silence, then a pleasantly hyena-like giggle with a simultaneous woeful Zuko-groan.

Toph grinned as she eavesdropped on the rest of the conversation.

“Um… sorry about my roommate, she’s uh… I--you know what? Thanks for the food, I promise I’ll tip you well, _okaygoodbyeforever_ \--”

“Oh no you don’t,” Delivery-Guy-Whose-Name-Isn’t-Diamond interrupted, and Toph could hear something stop the door from slamming in the dude’s face. “Someone as cute as you doesn’t have to use the app to tip.”

He must’ve been making quite the salacious expression because Zuko’s voice came out in an unintelligible sound at a pitch even _Toph_ hadn’t managed to wrestle out of him.

“I--what?” Zuko finally said after dumbass.exe booted back up again. Toph snickered loudly enough that she knew both boys could hear her.

“Hey man, I’m just asking for your number. You don’t have to give it to me if you don’t want to, I promise I’ll fuck off and never bother you again.”

“ _No!_ ” Toph heard a swish of air as Zuko probably grabbed the guy’s arm to prevent him from leaving. “I mean… uh, sure, I could… I mean, it’s just my number, right?”

Delivery-Guy-Not-Diamond chuckled. “Yeah, man, I swear I’m not a serial killer or anything. I’m just an engineering and poetry double-major that delivers grub to pay tuition and maybe to treat cute guys like you to pizza, if you want to? Maybe?” Toph heard a _scritch-scritch_ as the guy nervously rubbed at the hair at the back of his neck.

“ _OH MY SPIRITS, JUST MAKE OUT ALREADY_!” Toph bellowed from her position flat on the living room floor.

She could practically feel the heat radiating from Zuko’s full-body blush all the way from the front door.

\-----

Turns out, Delivery-Guy-Who-Is-A-Double-Major-In-Engineering-And-Poetry had an _actual_ name, which was Sokka (as it had apparently been written, plain as day, underneath his “diamond status” tag; of course, Toph mainly knew this because she eventually bullied Zuko into telling her), and Zuko was disgustingly oogie over him. Toph almost wished she could see so she could 1) make fun of the definitely stupid look on Zuko’s face whenever he talked about him or texted him or thought about him--it was a kind of cross between fond and constipated based on the way his voice got tight and embarrassed but also _warm_ and _gooey_ whenever she called him out on it--and 2) so she could sit back and enjoy the full splendor of “Two Idiots in Love: a Treatise on Pining so Hard and Yet, Being so Dumb”, the A++ drama that her roommate and his probably-eventually-boyfriend didn’t even realise they were starring in.

As icing on the cake, Katara and Aang were _completely_ on board to torture Zuko over his massive crush. From Aang’s perspective, he was just ecstatic that his most awkward best friend finally seemed to be bouncing back from his last breakup, and it was a giant win that Zuko was into a guy that Aang’s girlfriend had never been interested in (yeah, Zuko’s very short-lived fling with Jet burned pretty hot and fast, but fizzled out just as quickly; good thing Katara didn’t actually date the guy, that would’ve been infinitely more painful when they passed by him on campus). Katara, on the other hand, was excited to mother hen the shit out of Zuko (Toph’s words, not hers) and kept swooning as expected of their resident mom-friend whenever Zuko so much as mentioned his new love interest.

With all the chaos that was their group chat and pretty much every visit from Katara and Aang since the fateful Thai food delivery, Toph never really thought about the fact that she was the only one to know the guy’s name, and that she somehow had never let it slip to either of their other two friends.

Not until she _did_ let it slip, and by complete _legitimate_ accident--she had honestly not even realized that they had never heard that Zuko’s giant gross crush was on _Sokka--_ not _Diamond--_ but given the absolute bone-chilling silence that followed the name-drop, she _definitely_ would’ve noticed if either she or Zuko had spilled the beans earlier.

“Wait, no-- _what_ did you say Zuko’s delivery-boyfriend’s name was?”

(“He’s NOT my delivery-boyfriend!” Zuko protested, only to be completely ignored by everyone except Appa, Aang’s St Bernard-poodle mix, who gave Zuko a slobbery, enthusiastic cheek kiss. Zuko did begrudgingly love it, and gave Appa some extra-special ear scritches to show his appreciation as his friends forgot he resided in the same dimensional plane as they did, instead proceeding to gossip about his non-existent love-life despite the fact that he was the thing that was, in fact, existent.)

“Sokka?” Toph repeated, somehow feeling like something _incredibly amazing_ was about to happen.

Aang and Katara shared one of those meaningful old-married-couple moments wherein they said nothing but Toph could feel an exchange of thoughts through the tension between them; finally, Aang burst out laughing and Katara made a weird choking sound like a dying whale.

“What’s so funny?” Zuko demanded, though it sounded way more like a childish whine. Toph sharpened the cut of her smirk against the narrow slice of Zuko’s glare; she could hear his nostrils flare in annoyance and the way he was practically vibrating where he stood, arms crossed tight over his chest.

“Sokka is Katara’s _brother_ ,” Aang wheezed, smacking his thigh repeatedly in glee. He was laughing so hard he was gasping for breath and snorting between fits of giggles. Katara still seemed to be in a state of shock; she might have required CPR at this point, but Toph had never taken first aid classes so she didn’t really know.

“ _Wha--_ ” Zuko’s foot fell heavily against the floor as he took a startled step back, uncoiling from his defensive stance into something decidedly off-guard. Toph heard him rearrange his footing as he shook his head repeatedly. “No. No way, nope, you’re not gonna fool me. That’s ridiculous.”

This sent Aang into another wave of laughter that sounded frankly painful. Appa let out an excited _whuff_ and started rolling around on the ground beside Aang, shaking all the shelves in the apartment and rattling Zuko’s absurd number of books (some textbooks but mostly books of poetry, romance novels, and plays--the big freaking _nerd_ ), carrying the faint smell of dusty, well-worn paper to Toph’s nose.

Zuko turned to Katara and Aang seemed to laugh even _harder_ at how faint and desperate his voice sounded. “Right, Katara? Ridiculous. You said… you said your brother went to, uh, Omashu University, right?” When there was no response, he repeated, a bit weaker, “...Right?” 

“Sokka transferred here to Ba Sing Se this semester,” Aang gasped out, hardly able to suck in enough air to form speech. “He’s been here since the beginning of January.”

Zuko’s bones seemed to lose all structural integrity as Toph heard him slump to the ground like the complete drama queen he was. He let out a long-suffering groan.

“This can’t be happening,” he mumbled, voice muffled most likely by his hands pressed over his face.

Toph’s grin grew even more wicked.

“Oh, this is _definitely_ happening.”

\-----

In retrospect, Toph was surprised that Katara hadn’t introduced them to Sokka as soon as her older brother had moved to Ba Sing Se, since removed from the whole gross flirting-with-Zuko thing, he was actually kind of cool. Toph would never tell him this, of course, since it was not in her nature to be disgusting and soppy and mushy, but also because for every frankly astonishing show of brilliance, Sokka would do something so fucking dumb she could never let him live it down.

“It’s not a blob-monster, it’s supposed to be _Appa_ ,” Sokka whined, snatching his paper away from Katara’s unimpressed and very critical eyes. “Zuko _loves_ animals, so I thought I’d draw him a portrait of the good-est boy.”

“Spirits, help us,” Katara muttered. The weight of Sokka’s pout could flatten mountains.

“For what it’s worth, I think it looks great!” Toph announced.

“Thank you, Toph!” Sokka’s beaming was evident until, “... _Hey!_ ”

There was a _swoosh_ and then Aang’s placating tone washed over them. “Come on guys, I think Sokka put in an awesome effort. He really captured Appa’s… well, his… uh… floofiness?”

Sokka knew when he was getting a pity vote, but he was also a petty desperate piece of shit, (and Aang really was too pure for this world) so he said, “Thanks, Aang.”

“Just ask Zuko to be your boyfriend already! Then you can kiss and run off into the sunset or whatever gay shit you want to do with him.” Toph stuck her pinky finger in her ear and scratched at the waxy build up in there before flicking it into the ether in the way that always made Katara’s blood boil and Zuko’s anxiety flare.

“I can’t just _do_ that,” Sokka moaned, his head _thunking_ down onto the desk. “He’s so _pretty_ and _good at stuff_ , I have to do something worthy of him!”

Toph could feel Katara’s shudder from across the room. “Okay, first of all, this is _Zuko_ you’re talking about. Sure, he’s literally got the nicest hair I’ve ever seen, but he’s an _idiot_. He once bought a slow-cooker because he thought he could make eight quarts of tea at once-- _i_ _diot_ \--and he’s also one of my best friends, so even though you’re my brother and I begrudgingly love you very much, if you hurt him I swear I’m gonna tell Dad where that scratch on his car _really_ came from--”

A long, drawn-out gasp. “You _wouldn’t_ \--”

A menacing chuckle, “Just try me.”

Toph relished the silence that followed. It made her wish there was a chalkboard somewhere that she could scrape her fingernails down just for the way it made people palpably cringe around her.

“You know I would never hurt him, Katara.” The slight air of hostility vanished, leaving behind something that tasted raw and vulnerable against the roof of Toph’s mouth. It was one of the very few times in her life that she actually felt out of place, like she wasn’t supposed to be hearing what was exchanged between the two siblings.

Katara’s hair _swish_ ed as she leaned down and brushed a barely-there kiss against Sokka’s temple. “I know, but I figured I would have to warn you anyway.”

There was a warm chuckle as Aang added, “Don’t worry, Sokka, she gave Zuko the same shovel talk last week.”

“You bet that Sugar Queen is gonna kill you both if your relationship doesn’t work out!” Toph sang cheerfully, crossing her arms behind her head and dangling one of her knees over the other as she reclined against Appa’s massive furry flank.

“Very reassuring,” Sokka said sarcastically.

\-----

“Wow, I didn’t know you could cook!”

Toph awoke from her afternoon nap to Sokka’s excited voice carrying over the light _clink clink_ of two sets of Zuko’s dinnerware. 

“I mean, it’s just a stir-fry. There isn’t much to it. Uncle always said that someone would have to actually _try_ to mess it up in order to actually mess up a stir-fry.”

Toph smothered a snort into her pillow. Leave it to Zuko to flirt by sharing anecdotes about his uncle.

“No, seriously though, this is _amazing_! What did you season this with?”

Toph had to stuff the corner of her pillow into her mouth to keep herself from bursting into a guffaw and interrupting the big reveal that was about to take place.

“Oh, uh… this, I guess.”

She heard the slide of a small glass being pushed across their dining table.

“ _Are you fucking kidding me_?”

Zuko couldn’t even dignify that with a response--you had to have dignity to do that, and her roommate decidedly had none of that shit.

“ _Zuko_ \--” the extra-incredible thing was that Sokka sounded honest-to-Agni _exasperated_ , and he was pretty much the definition of all things exasperating, so that had to be breaking some kind of universe record or something, “--this is literally a shaker labeled, ‘Assorted ramen packet’.”

“Okay, it’s not what you think.”

Toph could feel Sokka’s sassy raised eyebrow in her damn _soul_ and she was _living_ for it.

“Oh? Well, what I _think_ is that this is literally a salt shaker you’ve been filling with leftover seasoning from whatever fucking instant noodle packet you’ve opened last, and that you use this shit as _seasoning salt_ because you are a fucking _moron_.”

Zuko coughed. “Okay, then it _is_ what you think.”

A beat passed as Toph attempted to accidentally commit suicide via suffocation from laughing too hard into her pillow.

“ _Spirits_ , what the fuck is wrong with me,” Sokka whispered, barely audible over Toph’s internal cackling.

“ _Excuse m--_ ”

“I am in love with you.”

Toph held her breath--now was not the time to be heard by her two dumbass friends.

“Wai--what? _What?_ ”

There was a soft _smack_ as Sokka presumably grabbed Zuko’s face with a hand on each side of the older boy’s face.

“You are a fucking ridiculous idiot,” Sokka elaborated. Zuko made an aborted strangled noise in protest, but Sokka barreled on. “You are the _most_ fucking ridiculous idiot, but I must be the second most fucking ridiculous idiot because I am _so_ head-over-ass in love with you that I’m eating your stupid ramen packet stir-fry and I love it and _I love you._ ”

Toph counted to five in her head as the two of them were presumably staring into each other’s eyes in love and shock and whatever other sappy shit, but once those five seconds were up, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“JUST FUCKING KISS ALREADY, ASSHOLES!”

(She really wished she could see how hard Zuko could blush after that, but she was also glad she was blind afterward because the noises that were later coming from Zuko’s bedroom were decidedly scarring for life to her eardrums, so at least her very blind eyes were spared the same fate.

In the name of fairness, spite, and good old roommate tomfoolery, she definitely put a pack of condoms in Zuko’s panini press the next day so she could leave a melted latex mess on a plate for the disgusting lovebirds to find when they finally emerged from their nasty den of depravity, but was very disappointed that the packages were just uncomfortably hot to the touch and otherwise relatively unscathed. Regardless, she vindictively filled a bunch of them with as much water as they could hold and carefully positioned them on Zuko’s bedroom door so the two of them could enjoy a nice refreshing splash as soon as they got up.)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually write humour pretty much ever. Hopefully someone finds this a little funny. I... might have an assorted ramen packet salt shaker. I'm not proud of it.


End file.
